Is there a way to see boundaries on the Island of Awakening?

[MindfulOcean]

My plan is to beat all of the main islands and the those extra small bonus islands before building out the Island of Awakening so I have the best stuff available to build. But just doing the mandatory tasks in Green Garden was kind of a challenge. Everything is so rocky, and I couldn't see any way to tell what the boundaries of the area are.

[Schploopus]

You get a better hammer to bust down the rocks that you cant currently break. The music changes when you leave your base area. I built outside the area near the river and the townsfolk still use it regardless of if its within the border or not.

[lilisaur]

The music doesn't change at IOA though because the entire island is considered your base.

However, residents can't move between areas without your use of the Resident's Register so there are boundaries to the habitable areas. These align to the map tile grid. One of the best images I've seen for this is at https://www.reddit.com/r/DragonQuestBuilders2/comments/nbdwge/new_post_game_isle_of_awakening_area_map/
If you do a Google search you might find others, particularly a Japanese one that is placed on an entirely flattened IOA that shows the entire island's buildable area, all the way out into normally unused areas like the western sea. While useful, I think the image on the link above is what most people want, not a flattened island that erases the mountain boundaries and coastlines most people will use to help guide them.

Prior to unlocking an area, you are of course prohibited from building within it and this is one way to determine the boundries, but you obviously lose this capability as the game progresses. I've heard that if you ring the Bell item (once you gain the recipe to build one) the residents for only the area you are in come running and this can help identify the border, too. The quickest and most reliable way is to place Erdrick's Wards in post-game, as a single area can have only one, and the island is limited to five (the mountaintop temple counts as one area, and the beach and sea areas count as the fifth) Having an Erdrick's Ward in one area will not let you place a second until you've moved into a maptile belong to another area.

As the story progresses, you'll get hammer upgrades. The first one will let you break the Umber blocks populating Green Gardens and this will greatly help you flatten the terrain or remove blocks that keep you from making nice 9x9 fields. The second upgrade will let you break even tougher blocks (like the red Chert all around the mountaintop temple.) The final upgrade occurs post-game, and lets you reduce items into collectibles rather than component items - for example, hammering a tree with the final hammer gives you a placeable tree item rather than a bunch of Wood.

[Schploopus]

Originally posted by lilisaur:

The music doesn't change at IOA though because the entire island is considered your base.

However, residents can't move between areas without your use of the Resident's Register so there are boundaries to the habitable areas. These align to the map tile grid. One of the best images I've seen for this is at https://www.reddit.com/r/DragonQuestBuilders2/comments/nbdwge/new_post_game_isle_of_awakening_area_map/
If you do a Google search you might find others, particularly a Japanese one that is placed on an entirely flattened IOA that shows the entire island's buildable area, all the way out into normally unused areas like the western sea. While useful, I think the image on the link above is what most people want, not a flattened island that erases the mountain boundaries and coastlines most people will use to help guide them.

Prior to unlocking an area, you are of course prohibited from building within it and this is one way to determine the boundries, but you obviously lose this capability as the game progresses. I've heard that if you ring the Bell item (once you gain the recipe to build one) the residents for only the area you are in come running and this can help identify the border, too. The quickest and most reliable way is to place Erdrick's Wards in post-game, as a single area can have only one, and the island is limited to five (the mountaintop temple counts as one area, and the beach and sea areas count as the fifth) Having an Erdrick's Ward in one area will not let you place a second until you've moved into a maptile belong to another area.

As the story progresses, you'll get hammer upgrades. The first one will let you break the Umber blocks populating Green Gardens and this will greatly help you flatten the terrain or remove blocks that keep you from making nice 9x9 fields. The second upgrade will let you break even tougher blocks (like the red Chert all around the mountaintop temple.) The final upgrade occurs post-game, and lets you reduce items into collectibles rather than component items - for example, hammering a tree with the final hammer gives you a placeable tree item rather than a bunch of Wood.

You must not be listening to the music then.

[lilisaur]

Originally posted by Jarl B Ballin:

Originally posted by lilisaur:

The music doesn't change at IOA though because the entire island is considered your base.

You must not be listening to the music then.

If you have a musical instrument playing in one of the habitable areas but outside of a room, then, yes, that could also be used a method to determine the borders of the habitable areas as the music will only play in the open space of that area. On the beach it only has a range of about 20 maptiles though, so it doesn't work as well there. And within a room or room set it only changes the BGM within that room or room set's radius (about 6 maptiles). A room set near an edge could confuse someone to where the exact borders are as the music plays across the border. And most people don't put a musical instrument outside of a room though, so its hard to fault people for not doing what typically isn't done.

But for the default BGM playing across the entire Isle of Awakening, I stand by my statement, with a few exceptions. Your base unquestionably covers the entire island because the HUD does not change and you can get monster mobs to attack you anywhere on the island (including the beach and mountaintop temple) for which you can neither warp, run, drive, or fly away from them like you can at the story islands. The default BGM can only change (to silence) at dusk (resuming in the morning), barring the presence of a musical instrument or room set that overrides default BGM behavior, or one of a handful of special events begins (such as the thunderstorm foreshadowing Shane's first attack or the appearance of Hargon.) I doubt there's many people checking area boundaries during these events. So under the default conditions, you can not listen to music changes at IOA to know where the boundaries of each area are; you can only do it with the help of a musical instrument playing outside a room.

[Schploopus]

tldr but each of the three main areas on Isle of Awakening, The Green Gardens, the Scarlett Sands, and The Cerulean Steppe all very much have music borders. Doesnt mean you cant build beyond them, but they are there.

[lilisaur]

What you say only happens in the presence of a music instrument playing outside of a room. It does not happen by default like it does at the story islands.

Don't make your DR other people's problems.

[Schploopus]

See that little mouse icon to the right of my name? It means I own the game on Steam. You don't have that.

[lilisaur]

Now don't be an ass. Not everyone who plays DQB2 plays the PC version.

I own the game on PS4. And I have the PC demo installed and have tested this behavior on visited islands. Neither platform responds as you say it does, on any island, personal or visited through noticeboard. Nor do the people I know who own Switch every responded that it has, nor have I seen any videos by folks like BenXC show that it has. The only way it does is with a musical instrument playing outside a room, or during unusual events (such as visiting an island shared upon return from Malhalla but before credits.)

Unless someone else is willing to speak up and say the PC version mid-game acts remarkably differently than PS4 and Switch versions then you're just repeating yourself without actually doing anything about that little mouse icon and testing this yourself.